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In which Keely was Bambi (repeat)

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Ya know what??? It’s Halloween today so instead of writing a new post, I’m going to share one of my favorite Halloween stories. It’s a repeat but I shared it two years ago and probably a lot of you haven’t read it. If you have, tough.

In honor of Halloween, which is this weekend, I must tell you a funny Halloween story. Or at least, I think it’s funny. Here’s a little background. I’ve always been a “MacGyver” type of person. That’s the type of person that jury-rigs a situation and fixes it until it’s “good enough” which is kind of my personal mantra (among others). I have always been about getting stuff done; doesn’t matter if it’s perfect, just so long as it’s DONE. Now as you can imagine, being married to an engineer means sometimes butting heads on exactly how things are done, but normally Kevin just leaves me alone and lets me run amuck.

One time, many years ago, one of our sets of wooden shutters broke. Kevin told me to get it fixed and I looked it over and figured out that I could fix it myself. So using a paperclip and a set of wire cutters, I managed to repair the wooden shutters. When Kevin looked it over it was in perfect working condition but you could see where I had fixed it. “What about that” he asked? Soon enough, a little dab of white paint was applied and voila “perfect set of working shutters”. So what’s the point? I’m all about getting things done in the easiest (or laziest) possible way.

So back in 1992, Keely MacDonald, the most awesome of my three kids, had just turned 3 and her sister Andie, who can only hope to be half as cool as Keely has turned out, was 15 months old. I hadn’t taken Keely trick-or-treating as a baby (as I think that’s ridiculous), but once you’re taking one out, you might as well take out the other. So Keely and Andie are going to go trick or treating. Now many of you who know Keely are thinking, “But wasn’t Keely a cat for every Halloween of her life?” The answer is… pretty much. Once Keely became a cat at age 5, she was a cat for EVERY SINGLE Halloween from there on out. She still is a cat when she dresses up and SHE’S IN COLLEGE NOW (NOT TRUE I AM BEING PIKACHU THIS YEAR)! However, when she was 4 she was Jasmine from Aladdin (Andie was Tinkerbell) and when she was 3 she wanted to be Bambi.

So, Keely tells me she wants to be Bambi and I’m not one of those “I’ll do anything for my kids” type of mom, so I’m trying to figure out how to accomplish it in the easiest manner possible. I’m explaining to my friends (yeah, I’ve got a few of them … or at least I did back in the day) how Keely wants to be Bambi and I’ll be damned if I’m going out and purchasing a Bambi costume (after all, this movie upset Kevin to the point of crying). A friend of mine tells me that her child was a wolf last year, and did I want to borrow that? So I check out the furry wolf costume and it doesn’t look anything like Bambi, but of course I don’t care and Keely is 3, so what the hell does she know? So I say, “Sure,” and I borrow the costume.

So, Halloween comes and we put Keely in the costume and she doesn’t look ANYTHING like Bambi: instead she looks like a little girl in a furry little costume, but I know I can rectify this situation. So I make a sign out of white paper with the words “I’m Bambi” written in marker and I attach it to the outfit. You see, Keely can’t read because she’s just 3 years old, but anybody who’s actually an adult can read (well, most likely) so when they see Keely they say, “Oh, so you’re Bambi?” Well, she’s thrilled because everybody knows she’s Bambi and I’m thrilled because I think it’s the funniest thing ever; she’s happy and I didn’t have to do shit, and I know we’re going to rake in the chocolate with this cute Bambi kid running around.

So, she goes through the night as “Bambi” and nobody tells her anything differently. She’s got beaucoup amounts of candy, which I’m stuffing in my mouth and it’s all good. I consider it an excellent Halloween on every level.

We were going through pictures a few weeks ago and I saw Keely’s “I’m Bambi” picture and I was thinking, “Is it possible I’m the worst mother ever?” I mean, who does that to their child? Looking back, I still think it’s funny and I realize that as long as she was okay, then I was okay, but I still can’t help chuckling when I look back at Keely, all happy, with her “I’m Bambi” sign out in front. Keely wasn’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing – she was a deer in a wolf’s clothing.

So, if you need some outside-the-box thinking or some MacGyver fixing, you might want to contact me. And the next time you think of buying a Halloween costume, just grab a marker and paper instead.